We Have Ways of Helping You Buy Running Shoes

The Wall Street Journal—February 24, 2010

Running is a popular way to stay fit. But finding the right running shoes can make you want to throw a fit instead. Many stores now offer customers high-tech evaluations using treadmills, cameras and other methods that purport to help find the right shoes to match a runner's physiology.

All of them assess whether one's feet roll inward, roll outward or maintain a neutral footfall, and then help one find the proper footwear. So how useful are these evaluations?

Sabrina Strickland, an M.D. with New York-based Hospital for Special Surgery and a member of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, says that in-store treadmill tests are mostly "gimmicky." A store associate can glean the same information by looking at a customers' older shoes and watching them walk or run, she says.